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{
    "id": 19566,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/19566/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 262,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have practiced law in this country for a very long time. For many years, I literally used to be, perhaps, the only lawyer who used to practice law in northern Kenya, before District Officers (DOs) and District Commissioners (DCs). It used to be a very difficult experience. There is one time I went to Mandera to represent a client. The family had chartered a single-engine aircraft. I arrived in Mandera and went to court which, of course, was the DCs office. The magistrate was the DC and the prosecutor was a policeman working under the DC. He was an Administration Police. When they heard that a lawyer had arrived in town to represent the accused person, they sent the police to stop me from leaving the airport for a reasonable time. In the meantime, they rushed through the trial and, by the time I arrived at the DC’s office, my client had been sent to jail for ten years on very spurious charges by the DC. That was replicated in many places. That is why, in the new dispensation, we have deliberately changed the description of the police from a force to a service. That is because it is supposed to give people service and not to exert force on them. I also remember one day in my first three years in practice. I went to Central Police Station, Nairobi, because a client had been arrested and locked up there. When I arrived, I walked straight to the office of the Officer Commanding Station (OCS). The first thing he did after learning that I was a lawyer was to stand up, physically assault me and kick me out of his office. Of course, they went on to do mischief against my client."
}